President Donald Trump just wrote his longest message on Truth Social, according to an analysis by CNN and a third-party tracking company.
The subject of the president’s essay? Not the midterm elections or the conflict in the Middle East. The post discusses her complicated relationship with HBO comedian Bill Maher.
“Bill: Don’t call again,” Trump wrote near the end of an emotional 1,323-word rant that began by calling Maher a “complete and utter loser” in all caps.
The lengthy message also contained some real news: Trump confirmed recent reports that he considered expelling journalists who cover him from the White House workspace that the press has used for decades.
“I am thinking of moving the press and placing it in a different location, but I will be using this location for much needed space,” Trump wrote.
But the bulk of the president’s message was in response to Friday’s edition of HBO’s “Real Time,” which was Maher’s first episode since his dinner with Trump at the White House on Oct. 15.
The next day, Trump said it was a “great dinner” and said Maher “likes me a lot more than people think, and I actually like him.”
Obviously, that changed after Trump listened to Maher’s show. In an article riddled with inaccuracies, Trump blasted Maher, his business partner Chuck LaBella and HBO. Trump concluded: “I never watched your show much, but I will never watch it again, because it is nothing but FAKE NEWS. »
“Real Time” is a comedy talk show featuring Maher’s sharp commentary, plenty of jokes and an array of political and cultural guests. Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was a featured guest Friday, alongside Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate for governor of California, and Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky. CNN rebroadcast the episode on Saturday. (HBO and CNN are both owned by Skydance.)
Trump’s message about Maher contained multitudes. At times he seemed disappointed. “You are a desperate guy,” the president wrote.
At other times, he looked vengeful. “I’m going to make sure the Republicans don’t cover for you anymore,” Trump said, apparently writing directly to Maher via Truth Social.
By “covering you,” Trump may have meant Republicans who agree to go on Maher’s show. Or perhaps he was referring to the tendency of Fox News and other right-wing channels to air sound bites of Maher’s heterodox monologues.
Trump made other unclear comments, including about a “Laugh Machine,” insinuating that Maher’s show uses a laugh track: “Bill Maher lied, but he lies about everything, and I believe he lied to me when I asked him, with all the applause and laughter he gets after almost everything he says, about things that aren’t funny or even good, what Laugh Machine does he use?” People may not think he’s funny.
The “Real Time” studio audience apparently thinks Maher is funny, as they are seen and heard clapping during the show.
Trump recounted his first dinner with Maher, in March 2025, and said “he gave me a good first show” afterward, then “he went back to himself and his old ways.”
Trump went on to claim that LaBella lobbied for Maher to invite back, “saying how much Bill loves me, that he respects me more than anyone and that he wants to come back for a second meeting.”
The Oct. 15 dinner also included ESPN host Stephen A. Smith and musician Kid Rock. Smith said the next day on his podcast that “we were there for over four hours at the White House and Donald Trump didn’t answer any questions.”
Maher repeated the four-hour estimate on HBO, leading Trump to object: “Overall, I thought it was a good meeting. It didn’t last four hours, it lasted two hours, maybe less, and everyone was happy. We have the timestamps. I didn’t learn anything and I felt like it was a waste of time.”
Trump also defended himself against Maher’s attacks over his low approval ratings by wildly distorting CNN’s reporting.
“I have high ratings and, more importantly, he said I was losing support and approval in the Republican Party when in fact CNN just released a poll showing me at 98 and 99% support within the Republican Party, an all-time high,” Trump wrote.
The most recent CNN poll, released last week, shows Trump with 74 percent approval among Republicans, “a new numerical low.”
Trump’s 98 and 99 percent claims likely refer to a weeks-old video clip from CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten, who pointed to another network’s poll finding that self-described MAGA Republicans still support the president almost unanimously.
Trump approvingly showed this video clip at midterm rallies. But the GOP has several million voters who do not identify as “MAGA Republicans.” Trump has repeatedly confused his loyal MAGA base with the broader Republican Party.
Maher has obviously touched one or more sore spots. Trump’s record-breaking diatribe against the comedian was almost double the length of his second-longest message, a 723-word sentence from May that began with complaints about plumbing and air conditioning at the Kennedy Center before veering into attacks on a federal judge and his wife, the Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs and citizenship rights.
The operators of the Factbase database wrote on
Of course, Trump started posting on Twitter, which had a 140 character limit for many years. These days, many social media sites encourage longer posts.
Yet Trump beat the reporters and found that they could barely capture and summarize Sunday night’s harangue. This article is over 900 words long, and it still doesn’t come close to matching the president’s verbosity.
Trump ended with his usual eight-word signature, perhaps never used more appropriately: “Thank you for your attention to this matter. »
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